It’s that time of year again-time to hop on out to your backyard for an EGG hunt. If you’re lucky, you’ll only have to search as far as your patio! Planning on cooking Easter Sunday? Check out our Easter Menu. If you’re looking for a sweet treat to enjoy with the whole family, try at least one of our sweet treats, if not both: Grilled Peeps & Carrot Cupcakes. Lastly, if you’re having company, our Pinterest page has lots of ideas for entertaining. We hope you have an EGGstra tasty holiday!

"The Baking Steel" Group Buy

Comments

I'm seriously considering ordering one for my large. A couple posters on another forum suggests getting the 15" one. I have a 15" stone and it fits perfectly with enough space.
With so many people saying they were going to order one, I wonder if they did. Seems like not many ordered it after saying they would. I wonder why.
Thanks for setting this up. I will more than likely get it. Read a lot about it and it is highly recommended.

I think some folks (like myself) were waiting to see what the price would be like. I'm not a pizza fanatic or connoisseur, so I will probably be okay with my pizza stones for now. The steel is a good option though if my stone breaks. I'm actually a little more interested in the version with a lip.

I think there were a number of people that wanted them for the mini, small and medium. IMO the price is not a good deal for them. I ordered a 16" and am quite happy with the price and free shipping, but for the guy that wants one of the smaller ones I'll admit that it does't make sense. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking when he set the prices.

I think there were a number of people that wanted them for the mini, small and medium. IMO the price is not a good deal for them. I ordered a 16" and am quite happy with the price and free shipping, but for the guy that wants one of the smaller ones I'll admit that it does't make sense. I'm not quite sure what he was thinking when he set the prices.

Mike

Are you buying for a large? If so, how did you choose a 16"? Would it still work high in the dome in a large at 16"? I will be using it high with a AR. Thanks.

Yes for a large. I have been using a 16" stone for over two years with no problems. Look a couple pages back in this as I posted a picture of what a 16" looks like in a large. He will make any size so if you're not comfortable with it get a 14-15".

Do these really make sense in the egg? The reason I ask is because the most common problem eggers seem to have with pizza is burning the bottom before the top get cooked. The big advantage of the steel over stone is the speed they can cook the bottom of a pizza once preheated. People using these steels in the home ovens position them high in the oven and fully preheat them to about 500+ degrees. When they slide the pizza in, they switch the oven over to broil so the pizza top gets done before the bottom burns.

We can get some pretty good heat from the top in the egg, but can we duplicate this technique?

@Cowdogs from what I understand is with steel it dissipates the heat quicker so it doesn't burn the bottom as quick with too much heat right away, it is more of a constant heat then a quick hot heat as you would get with ceramic. And with the egg indirect it turns into a convection oven.

For those of you that do not know, we are trying to get a group buy on "The Baking Steel." I do not have set prices yet on this, however, Andris the owner of the company should be getting me pricing tomorrow. So far we have about 10 interested, anyone else?

Fletcher - has he mentioned anything about the version with the outer rim? Or is that off the table now?

Edit: never mind I finally got through all the pages in this thread and saw your comment on this. Thanks for all your work.

Cowdogs, those kind of results have already been duplicated. On page 3 of this thread Focker posted a simple pie with great results. It think it took a few tries with different set ups, but he cranked that kind of pie shortly after getting the steel.

Watching what I like to call The Focker Trials, it looks like there were challenges with the 16 in and platesetter set up. When he moved to the 16 inch with a wok and sand, his results got way better. 16 inch limits how high into the dome you can go and still leave room for the heat to move into the dome and cook the top. The wok set up (discussed in another thread) encourages the heat to roll up the bottom of the wok and into the dome (because of the shape) while offering some protection to the bottom. It doesn't have go as high into the dome to cook the top. I went 15 inch and will be getting a cheapie wok for pizza. But I think with the wok set up, you'd be great either way. Thank goodness Focker did all the work so I could coast!

Cowdogs, those kind of results have already been duplicated. On page 3 of this thread Focker posted a simple pie with great results. It think it took a few tries with different set ups, but he cranked that kind of pie shortly after getting the steel.

And nobody will make you use it on the Egg if you don't want to.

I have no doubt you can get a good pie with the steel from the egg if you are careful about not letting it get too hot. My real question is, do you get a better pie from the steel than you are getting from your stone, and why.

What is the advantage of steel over stone? Primarily it is the ability to store and release a greater amount of heat. In a home residential oven these steel plates make sense. The home oven only goes up to 500-550 degrees, so the steel's ability to store more heat is solving a real problem. They are getting 3-4 minutes pizza cooks out of unmodified home ovens using steel, which they can't do using stones.

However on our eggs, even using pizza stones, most of are are using 2 stone setups to reduce the heat in the cooking stone. Why then would you think that a steel, and it's ability to store more heat, is going to help you?

BTW, Focker's aged Cheesesteak using the steel look incredible. Now this would be hard to do on my stone. >-

We've covered this multiple times. Reminds me of the "All this bacon talk" thread. Look on page 3 of this "The Baking Steel Group Buy" thread, I provided a link where Kenji Lopez explains the science behind steel and why it outperforms the Lodge CI pan, which he rated higher than a pizza stone. If you search "Baking Steel" on this forum there are several recent threads, with additional links of Kenji Lopez doing a comparison of stone vs steel. So far, my assessments have been on par with his. It is all about oven/egg spring, building the foundation.

We've covered this multiple times. Reminds me of the "All this bacon talk" thread. Look on page 3 of this "The Baking Steel Group Buy" thread, I provided a link where Kenji Lopez explains the science behind steel and why it outperforms the Lodge CI pan, which he rated higher than a pizza stone. If you search "Baking Steel" on this forum there are several recent threads, with additional links of Kenji Lopez doing a comparison of stone vs steel. So far, my assessments have been on par with his. It is all about oven/egg spring, building the foundation.

Focker,

I've read that link, and I've read what seems like 100 pages of posts on PizzaMaking.com regarding the use of a steel. I have followed your posts also. Your posts have led me to order a wok to use in place of my bottom stone. However, IMO no one has covered the "true advantages" of steel in an egg where we can get 700+ temps without even trying. It's mostly about the advantages in 500 degree home ovens.

My point is we are not using a home oven. Eggs don't have the problem of not being able to get our cooking stone loaded with enough heat. Eggs have the opposite problem if anything. I know your're happy with you pizzas, and your steel. I'm not saying they are not great. I just have questions about their advantages oven stone in high heat ovens like the egg.

I'm seriously considering ordering one for my large. A couple posters on another forum suggests getting the 15" one. I have a 15" stone and it fits perfectly with enough space.
With so many people saying they were going to order one, I wonder if they did. Seems like not many ordered it after saying they would. I wonder why.
Thanks for setting this up. I will more than likely get it. Read a lot about it and it is highly recommended.

You make a very interesting point. Check out this article that Kenji just posted on Monday.

He uses the the KettlePizza with the baking steel to make the "ultimate home pizza hack" with a weber grill. He says that the baking steel is so much more conductive than a stone so it may burn the bottom before the top cooks on a grill. In an oven, this isn't a problem since most top out around 550. This allows you to get good crust with properly done toppings in an oven.That, along with the fact that it is nearly indestructible, makes it better than a stone in an oven.

In a grill he puts the steel on top of the pizza cooking area with a stone as the bottom cooking surface. This allows the pizza to cook at the egg-like temps of 700+, which is what you find in a commercial pizza oven.

I think that in the egg, it allows you to cook on the steel at lower temps(500+) and get similar crust results to to cooking at higher temps since it transfers heat so much better, just as you said.

If you do your pizzas at higher temps, it may be a wash between the 2. The only way to find out is to try it, I suppose.

He uses the the KettlePizza with the baking steel to make the "ultimate home pizza hack" with a weber grill. He says that the baking steel is so much more conductive than a stone so it may burn the bottom before the top cooks on a grill. In an oven, this isn't a problem since most top out around 550. This allows you to get good crust with properly done toppings in an oven.That, along with the fact that it is nearly indestructible, makes it better than a stone in an oven.

In a grill he puts the steel on top of the pizza cooking area with a stone as the bottom cooking surface. This allows the pizza to cook at the egg-like temps of 700+, which is what you find in a commercial pizza oven.

I think that in the egg, it allows you to cook on the steel at lower temps(500+) and get similar crust results to to cooking at higher temps since it transfers heat so much better, just as you said.

If you do your pizzas at higher temps, it may be a wash between the 2. The only way to find out is to try it, I suppose.

Good point. Steel being able to cook at lower temps makes sense. However consider that the people over at PizzaMaking.com who are really exploiting the potential of the baking steel are cooking Neapolitan pizza. They consider any pizza that takes over 4 minutes to cook to be a failure, as they know they won't get the taste and texture they are after.

I suspect that if we lower the egg temp, we will sacrifice the ability to get the top done quickly. This is why the standard for high heat pizza cooks on the BGE involve cranking the heat way high, and blocking the cooking stone so it does not get too hot relative to the dome.

I'm looking for some flexibility for using one of these on my large and medium. I'm thinking 14". Anyone have any advice on using that size on a medium? Would it restrict airflow too much? I just ordered a Hi-Que fire grate for my medium, so that should help...thanks for any input.

I'm looking for some flexibility for using one of these on my large and medium. I'm thinking 14". Anyone have any advice on using that size on a medium? Would it restrict airflow too much? I just ordered a Hi-Que fire grate for my medium, so that should help...thanks for any input.

I think that it may. In my medium I had a 12" BGE stone and though I could go up to 13". I have read that 14" stones could inhibit air flow. I would try to get it up above the felt line to prevent this.

@scooter759 I ordered a 13" steel just for the flexibility between medium and large that you speak of. I've used my 13" stone from CGS in both and have had no difficulty so that's what I based the measurement on.

I raise my kids, cook and golf. When work gets in the way I'm pissed, I'm pissed off 48 weeks a year.

Inbetween Iowa and Colorado, not close to anything remotely entertaining outside of football season.

Just read some of the other threads about this. Has there been a concensus about the best size for a LBGE? Does 16" seem to be best?

I'm personally not an expert on this but I read a blog yesterday by a guy that seemed to me to have lots of knowledge about the proper setup for cooking bread in the LBGE. His claim was that the perfect size pizza stone, hearth stone or in this case baking steel was 14". He kept talking about airflow being extremely important when baking bread. There you go... That's all I have to offer on this topic since I am a novice bread baker that's just trying to learn that craft.